The oldest item yet to feature on Poster of the Week, this Russian-made poster for the German silent epic, Helena (1924, aka Helen of Troy), is a great example of avant garde design, and features the bold use of a limited range of colours. It’s striking, grabs the attention, and offers lots of detail that draws the viewer’s attention (and a little unwillingly at that).

The image is the key factor in the poster’s design, with Vladimir Gajdarov’s Paris posing regally as if bathed in the rays of the setting sun, his handsome, aquiline features made all the more dramatic by his closed eyes and proud bearing. He’s like a god, his striking countenance offering no doubt that here is the movie’s hero in all his costumed splendour. His tanned, sun-blessed skin tones and wavy brown hair complement each other perfectly, and they blend seamlessly into the burnt orange flare of his tunic, and then on down into his right arm. Only the silver-grey of his breastplate breaks up the effect, but its presence there works, the juxtaposition of the deep reds and the shiny silver-grey proving arresting.

As we pan across the bottom half of the poster, there’s Paris’s helmet, an almost isolated pocket of silver-grey that features strange whorls and curlicues. It’s as if there should be a pattern there, something to occupy the eye as it lingers on the helmet, but the effect isn’t that considered or organised. Each swirl is independent of the others, and each has its own flow and purpose (even if, ultimately, we don’t know what that purpose is). Paris holds his helmet in place with rigid formality, an extension of his pose to the left.

But what’s this? There’s something odd going on in the poster’s centre. There’s something keeping Paris and Helen of Troy apart. At one end, by Paris’s left hand, it looks like it could be a fur, but it’s clearly attached to some kind of material that at its other end is too sharply defined to be from an animal (it also looks as if Paris would impale himself on it if he leans forward too far). This part of the image doesn’t make any sense, even if you accept that it’s the cockade to Paris’s helmet, and especially with the way that Edy Darclea’s Helen is leaning over it in her efforts to be closer to Paris. She looks both uncomfortable and awkward in her positioning. Her gaze, such as it is with her eyes being closed, isn’t even in line with that of Paris’ gaze, and her smile seems both unlikely and inappropriate.

Helen is further let down by the artist’s choice of hat wear. With its truncated top and red circles it’s the Ancient Greek equivalent of a bobble hat, but without the telltale bobble to give it all away. Her skin tone is problematical as well, with its light orange appearance looking too pale against the reds and greys near to her. And what we can see of her tunic reveals a distinct “peasant blouse” effect, an unlikely choice given the period. All this – and let’s forget about the lone ringlet allowed to drape itself over her shoulder – serves to make Helen a less effective component of the overall image than her lover, Paris. Deliberate? We’ll never know, but it’s strange that one side grabs the attention for all the right reasons, and the other side does the same but for all the wrong reasons.

Of course, this being a Russian poster, the text is in Cyrillic, with the main title given prominence near to the top right hand corner. Down in the right hand corner we have the movie’s two sub-titles: Part 1 – The Elopement of Helen, and Part 2 – The Fall of Troy, while crammed into the space below Paris’s right hand is what appears to be details of a limited engagement at one of Moscow’s cinemas. But if you have to spare a thought for anyone connected with this production, then it’s the principal cast of Darclea, Gajdarov, and Albert Steinrück that come off worst: they’re the names squashed between the back of Paris’s head and the edge of the poster. However, the text does make for a nice counterpoint to the main image, and even if it’s been added wherever there’s a space, it’s still effective in terms of the overall image.

This type of avant garde poster was a common sight in Russia during the 1920’s and while there are issues with the depiction of Helen, this is still a poster that draws you in and rewards on several levels. The colours are a pleasing mix of saturated and restrained, and despite Paris’s rigid bearing, contains enough “fun” elements to make it an enjoyable poster to look at, and much, much better than this French version (apologies for the grainy resolution):

Cleopatra, the movie that nearly ruined Twentieth Century Fox, has been given the 4k restoration treatment, and was shown at London’s BFI IMAX cinema on 24 November 2015 as part of the BFI’s season of movies about Love. Watching the movie on such a huge screen – now the largest in Europe after the one in Spain burnt down – it’s even more incredible the amount of detail that can be seen in each frame, and how magnificently crazy the whole project must have been to make at the time. The grandeur, the size, the ambition – it all comes across in a movie where the massive budget is defiantly there on screen, and for all to see. In these days of overwhelming CGI, it’s sobering to realise that, some poorly processed inserts, some matte painting, and some modelwork aside, everything was built both to scale and to impress (and not to mention twice). And even after fifty-two years, whatever else you can say about Cleopatra, it’s still a movie that impresses.

It’s interesting to wonder what the movie would have been like under the stewardship of its original director, Rouben Mamoulian, and if the production had stuck to its proposed $2 million budget. Or if the original cast had stayed on board: Peter Finch as Caesar, Stephen Boyd as Mark Antony, and briefly, before Elizabeth Taylor was cast in the title role, Joan Collins. Alas, we’ll never know, but one thing we can be sure of is that we wouldn’t be talking about that version anywhere near as much as we talk about this one.

The production was almost doomed from the start. Shooting began in London in 1960, but soon ran way over-budget thanks to the elaborate sets and costumes. After sixteen weeks, Mamoulian was fired; seven million dollars had yielded around ten minutes of footage – none of it usable. At the same time, Taylor, who was being paid an unprecedented $1 million, fell ill and had to have a tracheotomy (the scar can be seen in many of her scenes). Production was suspended while the studio worked out what to do next. They approached Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who agreed to write and direct; he had hopes of making the movie in two distinct parts, Caesar and Cleopatra, and Antony and Cleopatra. Each part would run three hours.

With the British weather hampering continued production, and Taylor’s recovery taking longer than expected – so much so that Finch and Boyd had to leave to honour prior commitments – the studio decided to relocate to Rome. Production resumed in 1961 with all the London sets being rebuilt (some would be built a third time), and Mankiewicz finding himself being pressured into providing a script that was being written each day for the next. As the production continued, it also continued to experience delays and problems due to the sheer size of the project. Filming in Rome was eventually completed in 1962, with the final leg of production taking place in Egypt.

Mankiwicz was unceremoniously fired by new studio head Darryl F. Zanuck during post-production, but he had to be re-hired when Zanuck realised that only Mankiewicz knew how all the footage fit together. Re-shoots were filmed in early 1963 – by Mankiewicz – but his early cut lasted six hours (in line with his idea of releasing two separate movies). Zanuck baulked at this, and decided to re-cut the movie himself. The result was the four hour version that was released in June 1963. The movie received mixed reviews, but was surprisingly a commercial success, becoming that year’s highest grossing earner at the box office. However, due to the spiralling costs of making the movie, over $31 million, it failed to make a profit, only breaking even in 1973.

But what of the movie itself? Well, yes, it is bloated and arguably in need of some judicious editing, but it is a fascinating viewing experience, with so much to recommend it that it’s a shame it lacks an overall shape to hold all its various elements together. Mankiewicz was a writer who didn’t lack for a great turn of phrase – “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” was one of his, for All About Eve (1950) – and he doesn’t disappoint here, but amid all the declamatory, theatrical-sounding dialogue, there’s too much that sounds rooted in modern day psychology. Antony has a great speech after the disaster of the Battle of Actium that is an actor’s dream, but you have to wonder if Antony himself would have been quite so self-analytical. And Taylor has some of the most florid speeches about love you’re ever likely to hear.

The casting is one reason why the movie works as well as it does. Taylor and Burton, who famously began an affair during filming, transfer that newly-found passion to the screen in such a way that there’s no doubt that Antony and Cleopatra are bound together forever (even if he does marry Octavian’s sister – for political reasons, of course). Taylor gives one of her best performances, and Burton matches her for intensity, even though Mankiewicz’s script has him marked out as a self-pitying drunk for much of the time. As Caesar, Harrison is autocratic and ambitious, though a tad reliant on adopting a pedantic uncle approach to the character in his early scenes with Cleopatra.

The supporting players are a mixed bunch but they’re spearheaded by a magnificent turn by McDowall as Caesar’s successor Octavian. His speech about Mark Antony’s death is worth the price of admission alone, and he makes the final hour all the more thrilling purely because he doesn’t look intimidating or savvy enough to be a match for Antony and Cleopatra put together. Danova is an intimidating presence as Cleopatra’s loyal servant Apollodorus, Keir is a growling, battle-hardened Agrippa, Cronyn is quietly authoritative as Cleopatra’s advisor Sisogenes, and Landau is Antony’s patient, loyal lieutenant, Rufio. All add lustre to the acting talent at the head of the cast, and add different textures through their performances that help lift the movie out of some occasional doldrums.

So, is it a good movie? Overall, yes it is. It’s clearly got its faults – the Battle of Actium, fought on water, suffers from having very little money spent on it – and some of the spectacle is there just because it can be, but it does have depth, and Mankiewicz is adept at navigating the political nuances of the era, making them accessible to the layman when necessary. In the director’s chair, Mankiewicz, along with DoP Leon Shamroy, creates a visual world for his cast to act in front of that feels both real and organic, and he keeps things moving with a great deal of style and purpose, which, considering the production’s problems, is a fantastic achievement. It’s never going to top any Top 10 Movies of All Time lists but it doesn’t have to. It’s a tribute to the folly of epic moviemaking, to studio perseverance in the face of an apparent disaster, and a monument to what can be achieved on a practical level when a production’s back is against the wall. Simply put, it’s a triumph over adversity.

Rating: 8/10 – much, much better than many people will tell you, and with a reputation for being bloated and unwieldy that just isn’t the case, Cleopatra is an event movie in more ways than one, and manages to achieve much of what it aspires to; with efforts being made to find the rest of Mankiewicz’s six-hour cut, let’s hope a fuller appreciation of this unfairly maligned movie will be available soon.

Ancient Egypt, 1300 BC. In the holy city of Memphis, Pharaoh Seti (Turturro) has learnt that the Hittite army is nearby. He sends his two sons, Ramses (Edgerton) and Moses (Bale) to rout them, which they do, but not before Moses saves Ramses’ life on the battlefield, thus fulfilling a prophecy that says one of them will be saved by the other who will become a leader. When they return, Seti orders Ramses to travel to Pithom in order to assess the slaves working there. Moses goes instead and meets the Viceroy, Hegep (Mendelsohn).

Hegep is crooked and treats the slaves poorly. During his visit, Moses meets a man called Nun (Kingsley) who tells him that he is a Hebrew and that the circumstances of his birth are not as he believes. Moses refutes this and returns to Memphis, but the story is overheard and reported to Hegep. Soon after, Seti dies and Ramses becomes Pharaoh. When Hegep comes to Memphis he tells Ramses of Moses’ history; this leads to Moses being sent into exile. He travels to Midian where he settles down as a shepherd and marries Zipporah; they have a son, Gershom. Meanwhile, Ramses marries Nefertari and they too have a son.

Nine years pass. During a storm, Moses pursues some stray lambs onto a nearby mountain. A rock slide renders him unconscious; when he comes to he finds himself confronted by a young boy, Malak (Andrews) who is God’s messenger. He gives Moses a task to do, one that brings him back to Memphis and a meeting with Ramses where he warns the Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free or there will be consequences. Moses prepares the Hebrews for conflict, while Ramses targets them in the hope that Moses will give himself up. But Malak appears to him again and warns him that Moses’ lack of progress means “something is coming”.

“Something” proves to be a series of plagues that wreak havoc on Memphis and the Egyptian people, culminating in a cull of all the Egyptian firstborns, including Ramses’ infant son. Ramses, in despair, tells Moses to take his people and leave. But once they’ve done so he takes four thousand men and pursues them all the way to the Red Sea, with the intention of slaughtering them all.

It could be argued that the need for a re-telling of the Moses story isn’t exactly high on anyone’s agenda at the moment, but nevertheless here it is, and directed by one of the few directors able to orchestrate a movie on such an epic scale. However, while Exodus: Gods and Kings is as visually impressive as you might expect given that Darius Wolski is behind the camera and Ridley Scott is overseeing things, the movie as a whole is a leaden, passion-free exercise in big-budget movie making.

Considering both the material and the cast taking part, the movie struggles to engage the audience from the off, proving largely uninteresting and a frustratingly bland experience. As happens every so often with the projects Scott chooses – 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Hannibal (2001) are just two examples – Exodus: Gods and Kings is a) too long, and b) too tedious.

With the story of Moses, the ten plagues, and the crossing of the Red Sea being one of the most dramatic Biblical tales, the fact that this incarnation loses its way so quickly (and never recovers) is a little embarrassing. The criticism that Scott focuses too much on the design and look of a movie is upheld here by a range of performances that give new meaning to the word “undercooked”. Bale’s portrayal of Moses lacks the intensity of feeling that the part demands, and his discovery of his roots is reduced to a brief scene that gives way to an even briefer fight scene; it’s as if he’s more irritated than devastated. Edgerton plays Ramses as an indecisive, self-doubting pharaoh who looks like he needs a comforter (or his mommy). As the dramatic foil to Moses, Ramses’ character carries all the weight of a feather duster, and Bale and Edgerton’s scenes together quickly become repetitive in nature: Moses shows his annoyance/anger/disappointment in Ramses, Ramses does his best not to look as if he’s going to cry.

Thus any clash between the two is always going to be heavily weighted in Moses’ favour, but Bale never takes full advantage of the way the script orchestrates these encounters (he’s also able to get to Ramses without being detected, and to leave without being pursued). He and Egerton aren’t bad per se, but they don’t spark off each other. If it weren’t for the fact that both actors are clearly physically present in their scenes together, you could be forgiven for believing that they filmed them separately and were “united” in post-production.

As for the rest of the cast, their roles are generally too small for them to make much of an impression, with the notable exception of Mendelsohn, who takes Hegep and invests him with a surprising mixture of flippancy and menace. It’s the best performance in the whole movie, and when he’s on screen, the discrepancy between his approach and Bale’s (in particular) is all too apparent. In even minor roles, Weaver, Paul, Turturro, Kingsley and Farahani are there to make up the numbers, while Valverde is stranded by the script’s need to tick off the boxes in Moses’ life without providing any depth to it. It’s unfortunate, as well, that Valverde’s appearance is during the film’s middle section, where Moses strives to be a shepherd before his first meeting with Malak (there is a burning bush but with Malak acting as God’s mouthpiece, it just looks superfluous). This stretch of the movie has all the pace of a snail race, and thanks to the indolent editing – courtesy of Billy Rich – seems to go on for much longer than it actually does.

With so many scenes either dragging on or lacking in energy, Exodus: Gods and Kings regularly falls back on its special effects, but even here the spectacular appears commonplace, our familiarity with what CGI can achieve blunting the effect of seeing Memphis from the air, or giant crocodiles attacking ships on the Nile. It also leaves the crossing of the Red Sea, and its fast-approaching ten-storey wave, feeling less impressive and/or intimidating than it should be. Again, Scott and his cast and crew fail to heighten the drama and leave the viewer struggling to work out where everyone is in relation to a constantly changing topography (not to mention a wave that appears to be advancing from at least three directions at once).

Scott’s ardor seems to have waned recently, with his last two movies – The Counselor (2013) and Prometheus (2012) – showing clear signs of a director unable to spot, or deal with, or overcome, the faults in each movie’s screenplay, and sadly, the same is true here. The script – by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, with assists from Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian – aims for intimacy amid the spectacle but ends up skirting it instead, and any notions of leadership, duty, fraternal betrayal, faith or destiny, rather than being placed front and centre, are given a passing nod whenever the movie appears to need them.

Rating: 5/10 – visually stunning but dramatically redundant, Exodus: Gods and Kings is a disappointing, mediocre piece that fails to inject any fervour into the story of Moses and his efforts to free the Hebrews from the pharaohs’ tyranny; stilted and dull, this becomes as much an epic of endurance (for the audience) as it does for its characters.